The parents of a young woman who died on a hospital trolley after taking an overdose of diet pills have branded the Government “complicit” in her death.

Bethany Shipsey, 21, was left in a packed A&E corridor as the pills “burned her from the inside”, an inquest heard yesterday.

And when she was seen by a junior doctor, he was dealing with a drug he had “never seen before”.

Bethany had swallowed so-called ‘fat-burning pills’ bought online from Ukraine before texting a pal: “I have just overdosed on DNP.”

Her mother Carole Shipsey, 57, a trained nurse, told how they counted 27 patients being treated on trolleys in corridors on the night Bethany died.

“There was no communication with us, there was no respect or dignity,” she said. “Bethany literally went in on a trolley that night and she died on a trolley.”

Her father Doug said: “Since Beth’s death we are hearing more and more deaths attributed to overcrowded and overwhelmed hospitals.

“This is the UK, it is not a third world country or a war zone. We need the Government to stop making excuses. We need them to actually listen to their regulators.

“We need those regulators to act, the Government to act quicker and sooner, and realise that ultimately they are complicit in the serious harm and death that people are succumbing to in Britain’s hospitals.”

Bethany had been in the care of mental health professionals for two years but was not considered a suicide risk, despite saying it was her 15th overdose.

She had suffered mental health issues since being sexually assaulted by her ex-boyfriend, Barry Finch, who was sentenced to six years behind bars in August 2016.

She was taken to Worcestershire Royal Hospital, where she was on home leave from a psychiatric ward, following the overdose on February 15 last year.

Last month, her parents told a coroner how overworked nurses and doctors overlooked their daughter because they had been busy with other patients.

Carole said a nurse initially dismissed Bethany’s symptoms as a panic attack on the overcrowded A&E unit. At one point she was even forced to try to open her daughter’s airways herself.

The inquest heard how Bethany was moved between four different bed spaces within the A&E department during her treatment.

The first emergency junior doctor to see her that night, Dr Alireza Niroumand, had never treated a patient who had taken DNP diet pills, and failed to consult the Toxbase service where medics can find appropriate advice.

“Even if he was overwhelmed or the hospital was overwhelmed it was essential information that wasn’t read,” said Carole. “And if part of it was read, it wasn’t acted upon. That started a chain of events that ultimately ended in Beth’s death – it didn’t give her a chance.”

Experts disagreed during the inquest as to whether better treatment could have saved Bethany but medical staff conceded their department was “overwhelmed” that night.

Senior nurse Kirsty South broke down in tears as she described “one of the most challenging shifts we have ever worked” and added: “It would be wrong for me to say that it doesn’t occur regularly.”

Giving evidence, Carole described her daughter as being a gifted photographer and animal welfare activist who was “full of life”. Her mental health problems started when she faced bullying on social media and broke up with her boyfriend.

“The overdoses were always quite calculated and she always let people know what she had done, almost like a safety net,” the mum said, adding that on the day of Bethany’s death she had a phone call from her son, saying Beth had taken some diet pills.

“By the time I drove up, it was just after 7pm,” she told the court. “She was in the resuscitation area, I was beginning to think ‘This is serious’. I went up to her and I kept calm. She was fidgeting on the bed and said to me: ‘I’m burning from the inside.’

“I remember calling the nurse from behind the curtain: ‘Can you come and look at Beth?’ The nurse came over.

“But she said ‘You’re having a panic attack, Bethany’.”

Dad Doug added: “I heard these were dangerous diet pills. When medical staff used the term DNP I looked it up and I saw news articles that young people had died from it.

“One headline said it effectively microwaves people from the inside out.

“I was trying to persuade someone to come with me to explain ‘This is a killer drug we are dealing with and we need to up the game'.”

Worcestershire coroner Geraint Williams recorded a conclusion of suicide, but added that a series of failings in her care in the busy A&E department amounted to failures in basic medical care.

He said he could not, however, conclude that Bethany would have survived if she had received the full package of care.

Slimming aids action

Bethany's parents last night called for tougher laws to regulate the sale of slimming aids.

Carole and Doug Shipsey said they disagreed with the inquest verdict that their daughter took her own life when she ingested a fatal dose of DNP.

“We do not feel that the coroner’s conclusion reflected the evidence that was heard during the inquest,” they said in a statement after the hearing.

“Bethany’s basic human right to life was breached in the very place you would expect it to be preserved.

“In addition to the serious failings of the Worcestershire Royal Hospital, Beth’s life was brutally cut short by the effects of the deadly industrial toxic substance DNP, which was illegally sold as a so-called diet pill,” added Doug. “Beth was unlucky enough to be taken to an inadequate A&E department which was overcrowded, overwhelmed and under-staffed.

“It was, literally, a first world hospital in third world circumstances.

“It’s important that everyone knows that DNP is not actually a diet pill – it’s a lethal industrial compound with no known antidote which is inserted into capsules and illegally sold over the internet.”

The hospital

THE Care Quality Commission currently rates the Worcestershire Royal Hospital as “inadequate” and the Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust remains in “special measures”.

Following the inquest’s conclusion, the trust said in a statement: “We would like to express our deepest condolences to the Shipsey family for the tragic loss of their daughter Bethany.

“We are sorry for the shortcomings in Bethany’s care and the support which was offered to her family.

“We can reassure people using our urgent care services that we have taken actions since February last year that address the issues highlighted by the coroner today.”